How Houstonians can help Syrian refugees

MYFOXHOUSTON - Recent developments like last week’s tragic picture of a dead infant and the Pope’s appeal to every religious community to help, has brought the plight of Syrian refugees to the forefront.

“It’s such a tragic situation that’s going on and it’s our duty as Americans to be involved on the positive and humanitarian side,” said Dr. Issam Raad president of H.O.M.E. Health Outreach to the Middle East.

The Syrian refugee crisis is nothing new.

It began in 2011 when thousands of citizens fled across the border to Lebanon and Turkey to escape the violence of the Syrian war.

“So far there is more than 230 thousand people killed in Syria over the last three years,” Raad said. “It’s one of the worst catastrophes in the last 50 years that has occurred on this planet Earth.”

While Germany has taken in many of the millions of Syrians fleeing their homes the U.S. has only taken one thousand 400 refugees over the last four years.

“Forty percent of the people killed are children and women can you imagine,” Raad said. “This is a hundred thousand people killed in a span of three and a half years almost four years.”

Raad says Houston is known for giving to those in need and he believes if we all had a better understanding of just who these refugees are they would receive more help.

“We need to realize the Middle East is not a very distant place,” Raad said. “We are involved whether we want it or not.”

For more information on H.O.M.E. Health Outreach to the Middle East, contact them here.